Are early stage of love as "real" as long term love?

[Hermes]

Here goes:

 

"So many people confuse the feeling of attraction with the emotion of love. For some who are in chronically dangerous and pathological relationships, it’s obvious they have these two elements mixed up. Understandably, not being able to untangle these can keep people on the same path of unsafe relationship selection because they keep choosing the same way and getting the same people!"

 

From:

 

 

 

by Sandra L. Brown

[rosephase]

Here goes:

 

"So many people confuse the feeling of attraction with the emotion of love. For some who are in chronically dangerous and pathological relationships, it’s obvious they have these two elements mixed up. Understandably, not being able to untangle these can keep people on the same path of unsafe relationship selection because they keep choosing the same way and getting the same people!"

 

From:

 

 

 

by Sandra L. Brown

 

Sure people can get love and attraction confused. But that doesn't mean love isn't a feeling.

 

I'm pretty hard headed myself. We don't have to agree. These are pretty personal philosophies. Part of my view, I think, is linked to my non-monogamy. I love a lot of people. I try to keep my heart open to love, even if a relationship isn't possible or advisable. But just because I don't commit, or don't build a future, or entangle our lives doesn't mean I don't love them deeply.

 

I love a lot. And I'm in love with more people then my romantic committed partners. For me love is a powerful meaningful feeling. What I do in reaction to that feeling is up to me, it could be healthy or unhealthy, it could be committed or casual... There are as many relationships as people.

 

And attraction is a completely different thing. Lust is a roller coaster. I'm grateful that at 32 I can mostly tell them apart. I get why it's confusing for people. Just like people confusing dependency for love...

[limichelle]

I've been in both!

 

I was with somebody long term and I believe that love even though it couldn't last will never die. In fact when things turned tragic in our relationship I loved him even harder. I just fell out of being in love. I could no longer see him as a life partner or somebody I wanted to hang around even. The genuine realness of love was however still there because I still care and he will always have that special spot inside my heart.

 

I'm right now in the early stages with somebody and I believe I love him and he loves me. In the beginning eleven months ago when we were just best friends we were in the infatuation stage. Then we fell in love. He is somebody I can tell my deepest, darkest secret to and not be judged. Same with him. I actually see our love more realistic compared to the love with my ex.

 

I see it realistic in the sense it can overcome anything and has more direction and not so much relying on the other person for your own happiness and self worth. This love is teaching me how to be complete on my own.

 

With my ex we were molded into one and we excluded everybody from our bubble. Not healthy. Also too dependent on one another.

 

I think the love I have now is better then the one I had.

 

Long term love teaches you what to expect with what your true needs are after it falls apart.

 

Rebounds some successful, most not!

Shorter term your expectations are more high but your eyes are wide open. Given the experience you had with your previous long term.

 

Lisa

[ParisPaulette]

I've come to view the whole shooting match, the good, the bad, the ugly as simply this - love in all of its forms is not a quantifiable thing nor is it limited in that if you love this one person over here you have now used up your basket of love for your entire life and will never get it again.

 

Part of the problem I think is we have a society that pushes only one type of love - romantic love. This leaves out love for pretty much any other area of life people have. There is love for our friends, our family, our pets, our possessions, heck I fall in love with my ranch and the place I live in daily. I can be driving along staring at beautiful pink and orange clouds against a blue sky as the sun comes up over the mountains and get that giddy headrush of emotion that is so close to falling in love it's practically the same thing. I feel it when my son kisses me and hands me a bunch of roses. I feel it when my favorite cat curls up in my lap and does happy biscuits with his legs and gazes up at me. I feel it when a friend stops by and hands me a cup of coffee and a tomato from her garden. And I feel it when my husband puts his arms around me and kisses me and says good morning.

 

But according to mass media the only love in my life that appears to "count" is that last one from my husband. And that simply isn't true. These are all legitimate forms of love and they enrich us and make life worth living, which in the end I think is simply what love is.

 

As to infatuation or attraction, that is also very real. It is if you want to get really technical about it, simply Mother Nature's way of pulling us together to make sure the race carries on. Everything under the sun, moon and stars must propagate for the species to carry forth into the future-simple biology. In animals this can be what is known as going into heat. With humans we evolved a bit differently, but still that initial attraction is what pulls two people together. What happens after that depends vastly on each person's own experiences, their emotional health, each person's values and education and a whole host of other things that make each of us - well us.

 

I don't really see any of it as being "less real" or somehow less legitimate. I see it as we each have a mind, we are thinking and reasoning beings and based on a number of facts while we may not be able to consciously control who we're attracted to, we still have the ultimate power to decide, "You know, this one has too many red flags. I think I'll just go play with the cat and hang out with my friends and enjoy that type of love while I actively look for someone a bit saner in the future."

 

We cannot always choose who we develop an infatuation or a crush on or who we love. We can always choose whether or not we're going to let those feelings become a detriment to us and our lives or something good.

 

This is simply my take and my theories on it. I have walked away from both infatuations and love, short-term, long-term, obsessive even in one case. My life did not end, I was still able to feel love for new people as well as the love I already had for those in my life who hadn't hurt me if I chose to walk away from the one or ones who had.

 

And that's usually kind of something you find out just through experience and the passage of time.

 

All I can really offer is if a love hurts you, if it makes your life bad, then walk away because the clock is ticking down always and you don't and shouldn't waste your life on something or someone who doesn't make you happy. And sometimes it takes a bit for your heart or emotions or whatever the heck one calls that to catch up to what the head already knows. You get over a bad relationship a whole lot faster and get to the potential of happiness a whole lot quicker if you simply walk away from the one causing you pain. And that's something I wish I'd known when I was younger.